


Discipline

by brightly_lit



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, Gen, Teen Years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-25
Updated: 2013-11-25
Packaged: 2018-01-02 14:34:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1057917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightly_lit/pseuds/brightly_lit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John finds out Dean gambled away his kids' food money and got caught stealing, and decides not to bail him out.</p><p> </p><p>Episode tag/missing scenes for episode 9.07.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Discipline

John had seen this coming. Apparently teenagers really were rebellious--even Dean, who was all “yes, sir, yes, sir” when John was around, and who got up to all kinds of no-good when he wasn’t--kinds of no-good that even boggled John’s mind. He’d taught his son to shoot, to kill, to salt and burn, but Dean was in a class by himself when it came to finding trouble. 

No matter how hard he tried, John couldn’t seem to impress on the kid a sense of where to draw the line; it was like the world was his water park and he dove headfirst into the first glimmer of liquid he saw, every time. John had resorted to trying to drill a few basics into that thick skull of his--safety on, know what you’re dealing with, always have backup, use a condom--but he wasn’t sure of how much sunk in. Truth be told, it made John wonder about Mary, because all this sure as hell didn’t come from John. He’d obeyed his mother, his teachers, his commanding officers. What would he have learned about that woman, if he’d had her by his side for longer?

Was John surprised to learn that his 16-year-old son had found his way into the back room of a sleazy bar on the outskirts of town and weaseled his way into a game of poker with a bunch of low-lifes? No. Was he surprised that he’d put up his and his little brother’s food money? It was the only money he had, since honest work seemed anathema to the kid, so no. Hell, he wouldn’t have batted an eye if the little delinquent had had the sense to stop before he gambled ALL of it away, but that was Dean: foolhardy and overconfident and reckless and ever on the lookout for a good time.

Naturally, Dean had decided stealing was the logical solution to the pickle he got himself in, because Dean had never grasped the finer points of making a living without earning money. Okay, technically credit card fraud was stealing, but it didn’t hurt any individual person, it just siphoned from a large corporation money that was a drop in the bucket by their standards. Dean would just as soon become a common criminal ... and now he had. John was too ashamed to tell Sam where Dean really was--and too afraid. He knew how Sam idolized him; God forbid he should decide to follow in his footsteps.

The truth was, John wasn’t around enough, and he knew it, but even if he was there every second of every day, the fact was Dean just didn’t listen. Nothing John would ever do to one of his sons seemed to make an impression on the kid. When John tried to talk to him about doing the right thing, Dean’s eyes glazed over and he nodded like a bobblehead doll, his mind on girls or guns or sweets or whatever else he spent all his time thinking about. If Sam were the eldest, if Mary were here--hell, if hunters were a slightly more moralistic bunch--there might be other influences in Dean’s life echoing what John was trying to tell him, but there weren’t, just teachers Dean thought were idiots and authority figures Dean lived to foil and the people they helped, whom Dean considered unfortunate naifs.

So when the deputy called John up to tell him what Dean had done, John told them to tell Dean he wasn’t going to bail him out this time, that he could just stay there and face the music, because of all the stupid things Dean had done, the one that made John angriest was that he got himself caught. It was like he’d wanted to. Dean was 16. Next time he got himself caught for something like this, he’d be incarcerated in a prison for much longer, with hardened criminals. Maybe he would finally see there were consequences to bad behavior. Maybe he’d see the other kids he was stuck with and decide he didn’t want to become one of them. Maybe something or someone would get through to him in a way John never could. If Dean didn’t learn his lesson now, John was afraid he never would. 

There was something else. He’d gotten wind of something in El Paso that sounded more promising than anything he’d heard in all these years: an infant’s nursery going up in flames. John knew it was a long shot, but he had to check it out, and no way was he bringing Sam and Dean anywhere near that demon, so this was good timing, actually: a safe place where Dean would have a bed and enough to eat and John wouldn’t have to worry about what trouble he might get himself (and sometimes Sam) into, for once. John took Sam to Bobby’s and headed for El Paso, praying to a God he didn’t believe in to find a way to teach his son what John couldn’t. 

 

John pulled up outside the farmhouse. It was night. He’d spent the day tracking Dean down--turned out not only had he ended up at this boys’ home instead of juvenile detention, but the charges had been dropped and no one had called John to let him know--not even Dean. Sam had been asking all day if he would see Dean soon. John hadn’t promised him anything because he didn’t even know where Dean was; the whole day had been one long wild goose-chase, as John followed the dodgy paper trail the state had kept on his son’s whereabouts. John half expected that ex-con to come out and tell John Dean wasn’t here, either, since those were the words he’d been hearing all day, but the man knew something about where he was; John could see it in his eyes.

Sam sat in the back, flying a jet plane out the window. He’d gotten into planes since seeing a bunch of books about WWII at Bobby’s. His sons were different every time John came back.

It took a long time, but Dean finally came out the front door, and John breathed a sigh of relief. John had figured that if he left his son with the state, if nothing else someone would know where he was at all times. Yet again, John saw the proof that however he might let his kids down as a parent, he was the best they got. Sam cheered wildly when he saw Dean, and John felt his heart lift with the sound. He had found his son. 

Dean high-fived Sam through the window and spared him a grin, then got in the car with a curt nod for John, unsmiling. He looked ... different. Older. No, not older, but more mature. More aware, less snotty and self-centered. “I’m sure you’re angry--” John began.

“No. I’m not,” Dean interrupted. He hadn’t looked at him once since he got in the car.

“Dean, I did it because--”

“It’s cool, Dad, it’s fine.” Dean sat up straighter than he used to, staring out the windshield resolutely, like ... like soldiers John had known in the war, kids away from home for the first time, determined to do their duty no matter the cost. Like boys who had decided to become men. John smiled. He put his hand on Dean’s shoulder for a moment and gave him a friendly shake before starting the car and heading on down the dirt road away from Sonny’s Home for Boys. Sam started up in the backseat, babbling about planes and Bobby and the junk yard, and Dean relaxed, smiling a little.

“What about you, Dean?” Sam asked him eagerly, in turn. “Where were you all this time?” 

John and Dean glanced at each other, and John could see in Dean’s eyes that he didn’t want Sam knowing any more than John did. Dean was probably more ashamed about gambling away their food money and getting caught than even John was. 

“Got lost on a hunt,” was all he said.

 

~ The End ~

**Author's Note:**

> \- I wrote this story because I loved 9.07 (all teen!chester stories, really--yay for flashback episodes!) and all the family dynamics it addressed/hinted at. I was surprised to see so many people saying it was OOC for John to do this, because it seemed in character to me, once I thought through it. I wanted to offer a different perspective to the 'OOC idea,' flesh out what might have been going through John's mind. In my pre-series fics, I write John as a deeply flawed but well-intentioned father, so I wanted to come at it the same way in this situation.
> 
> \- I was also inspired by a friend who went through an experience very much like Dean did in this episode, where he got in trouble with the law and was stunned when his family refused to bail him out as they had many times before. Months later, my friend told me he was glad it happened--at 30, he finally moved out of his parents' house, got a job, a girlfriend, a life, stopped drinking, and was a way happier person. John's motives are questionable, to be sure ... but as Sam pointed out, it ended up being one of the best experiences of Dean's life. 
> 
> \- I love a happy ending--I especially love stories where something that at first appears to be a bad thing ends up having a major silver lining--so I wanted to write a story in which the results of Dean's ordeal were as positive as possible, given the deck he's been handed by life. It gave me a nice head-canon for this ep; hopefully it'll do the same for you, or at least ease some of the pain if that aspect of the episode troubled you .... Hope you liked the fic!


End file.
